The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

The clockmaker practices what is known as \"parental rights\" – he mercilessly beats his son Boris for every misdemeanor. The boy grows up intimidated, angry, trusting no one, and befriending no one. One day, while the students at the polytechnic school where Boris studies are busy with a physical education class, he deliberately destroys a model that the students have worked so hard to build. The teacher prevents a cruel punishment of the culprit. The school community takes on the responsibility of re-educating Boris. Considered lost.

The year 1929. A “shock worker” from a tractor plant visits a film studio premises and is furious to see fake stage designs for a kitsch production about a Soviet life. He refuses to help the crew with his tractor, but is happy to ask one of the cameramen to go with him to visit an actual Soviet village. There they witness the birth of the kolkhoz and the dekulakization of wealthy villagers. Then they are transported to the future, to the year 1932, when the first five-year plan is done and the commune-sovkhoz is established. Movies can move faster than time, but the pace of change in Soviet society is even faster than that.